Finale: Part 3

"And that concludes round one!" Vivian yelled cheerily.

Ulrich looked at her in pure disgust. He wanted nothing more than to burn the smirk off her face, but his legs were shaking, and he knew if he tried to take a step forward, he would only trip, and he didn't want to find out what would happen if he was left exposed like that.

"Round one?" He asked, the one thing he wanted to know.

"Somebody dies every round, until one person remains. Provided you stay away from Gene and I, you get to live."

"And…Lainey." Sapphire sobbed, holding her corpse, not reacting to the icicles piercing her skin.

"Well, if a one on one is interrupted, then the participant is disqualified. I don't make the rules." Vivian shrugged. "This is on you."

She put her hand on a set of icicles, and shattered them, exposing Bartholomew. She did the same for Dominic and Ayana, and Dominic saw Lainey's dead body. He went over to it, inspecting it, shaking it a little. Sapphire put a hand on his shoulder, and Dominic saw the tears in her eyes.

He felt like vomiting. He was shaking as he witnessed the state Lainey was in.

“Vivian…you…you did this?”

“I did, yes.” Vivian nodded calmly.

“You killed Lainey. You did it just to mess with us! Do you not care about human life?"

"I feel you're the last person to talk about the value of human life, Mr. Redface."

"I…I’ll kill you!”

He felt the sword in his hand, and lunged at Vivian without thinking, getting warped back to the others in a flash, his sword right next to Ayana's neck.

He removed the sword and saw a trace amount of blood on it, with Ayana covering the thin wound on her neck.

"Right then, round 2 is all of you against me! Once somebody is killed, we'll move along, okay?"

Ulrich felt the world leave him for an indigo landscape. He looked over his shoulder, and Zeb was standing behind them, seemingly healed.

"Is everyone okay?" She asked.

"Okay? Okay?" Sapphire asked. "Lainey is dead! We're up against an immortal god! And you haven't done anything!"

"I'm aware I didn't!" Zeb shouted back. "I was drained of all my energy and I couldn’t think of anything!”

"Can we not discuss the dead girl?!" Ayana screamed. "We need to focus on how the rest of us are staying alive!"

"I think I got something." Ulrich said quietly, his arms crossed. "But I'll probably need you guys to hold her off for a couple minutes."

"What would your plan be, exactly?" Bartholomew asked.

"She can regenerate right? So if we can't wear her down, we need to unleash one giant attack on her. So if I unleash all of my body heat into one move, that'll hopefully be enough to finish her."

"Are you serious?" Dominic screamed, grabbing his shirt. "I already had somebody die, you think I'm letting you go out?"

"No, I have a plan. Zeb, you use lightning, right?"

"Plasma, why?"

"Even better. Once I use my power, you need to make some kind of plasma ring around me, and hopefully that'll cancel out the ice and my dropping body heat."

Zeb slowly nodded. "If that's your plan, then it's something we could do."

"If you also use heat, then you'd be able to assist him, I imagine?" Bartholomew asked.

"Almost certainly."

Ulrich felt the world around him move slightly, then stop. Zeb took a step back, and Ulrich noticed that the space was turning white in front of him.

And then Vivian appeared.

"Wow, took a while to get in here. Anyway, we ready for round two?"

The world went back to the icy wasteland, slightly hotter than before, but Ulrich could definitely die when he pulled this move off. He did a quick head count. Dominic, Sapphire, Vivian, and Bartholomew. But not Zeb.

"Guys, where's Zeb?" Dominic asked, his voice trembling.

His question was quickly answered when Zeb's body came flying out of thin air, barely missing him. Dominic looked at her, her head bleeding, but she was still breathing. Zeb got up, her arm swinging slightly, while the others got in front of Ulrich, Dominic moving Zeb into the centre alongside Ulrich, who shut his eyes and started putting the energy into his right hand. He started with his left hand, a simple enough process. But the main issue was his legs. He'd need to channel the heat inside his legs, while staying upright. Slowly, he began channelling his torso into his hands, trying to keep a small flow from his torso to his legs when the time came.

Vivian appeared in front of Ulrich, doing his best not to let her break her concentration, while Bartholomew appeared in front of her, blocking her oncoming hand with his gauntlets. She made an iceberg in her hand, which Bartholomew launched a left hook onto, and managed to send it flying into the air, and Sapphire sent it flying in the opposite direction. Vivian swept her left leg under Bartholomew's foot, tripping him. Sapphire managed to push him away from the ensuing icebergs erupting from the ground, with only a scratch on his suit's right sleeve to show for it.

"Break the ice!" Sapphire yelled.

Bartholomew nodded, punching through the ice, while Ayana hopped over it, knife in hand. She looked slightly taller, going for a kick directly to Vivian's jaw. Vivian took a step back, and Ayana leapt back, jumping above her in the hopes of landing a strike with her dagger. Vivian looked up, shot an iceberg towards her, and she dropped before she could make that move.

"Do you even have anything other than knife tricks?" She asked, chuckling to herself.

"Distraction techniques?" Ayana replied.

Vivian stopped for a brief second, looking around to see what she meant by that. She felt something move where Ayana was, and she was gone.

"Dominic…Get behind me." Ulrich grunted.

Dominic put his hands on Ulrich's back, and Ulrich dumped the heat from his legs into his arms, shooting forward the biggest blast of fire he ever saw. Bartholomew had to duck out of the way.

Vivian saw the encroaching flame, around twenty times her size, especially for such a novice. She tried to get out of the way but ran into a field of purple energy.

Zeb.

Zeb looked at her through the hazy purple, and she could make out some kind of smirk, before feeling a blast of superheated flame surround her. She tried breaking out. Her ice kept melting, so she resorted to brute force, eventually breaking the left side of her body out, but the heat kept searing her from the right side. She burst out of the portal eventually and tripped, unable to walk. But she felt her leg recovering, and was able to stand in a few seconds. She felt her face with her fingers, feeling the flaky burned skin. No matter, it would clear up in a few seconds, she thought, closing her eyes to feel it's smoothness again.

Any second now.

Any second.

Her eyes jolted open. Okay, what was happening? She wasn't regenerating. Her skin was still burned. Her imperfect eyes darted around, looking for the culprit. The knife girl was with Bart, Sapphire was with the demon girl, and the axe boy was with…the glove thief.

She needed to see if her gates and ice still worked, so she warped over to Ulrich, being held by Dominic. She reappeared in front of him, and Dominic threw Ulrich aside, trying to grab the sword next to him, but Vivian moved away from him, dashing to Ulrich and grabbing his head.

And then they were both gone.

Dominic picked up the sword, his eyes zipping around the tips of the icebergs to make sure Ulrich didn't show up impaled on any of them. He looked around at the others, all in a stance ready to fight Vivian should she come back.

"Hello."

Dominic noticed the voice behind her, swinging the sword behind him, which Vivian jumped away from.

"Luckily for you, I didn't declare round two over yet, so you get to stay alive!"

"W-Where's Ulrich?!" Dominic snapped back.

"Warped him to a different timeline, I think. Didn't even know I could do that."

"You…what?" Zeb asked. "Is he alive?"

"Eh, didn't check. Wouldn't bet on it, though."

Dominic tried swinging the sword at her stupid neck, which she stopped with an ice-covered hand, shooting the ice into his shoulder.

"Okay, then! Round three, anybody?"